‘Statins help me stay alive’

Emma Print, 39, from Essex, says people are shocked when she tells them she suffers with life-threatening high cholesterol.

“I’m 5ft 6in and weigh just 7st 7lb,” she says. “So I see the look of confusion on people’s faces when I tell them. I often say I’m a fat person trapped inside a skinny person’s body – that’s the best way for me to get it through to them. It’s because people often associate high cholesterol with obesity and a bad diet.

“But the truth is, as much as I eat healthily and exercise – I’m even a health and wellness transformation coach – the only way I can try and stay alive is by taking statins.”

Emma is just 39, but due to having familial hypercholesterolemia, she is at a constant risk of having a stroke or developing heart disease.

“I’ve been eating healthily and having a low-fat diet since I was 11, when my dad, Ron, was told he had high cholesterol. He was 63 then, and 19 years older than my mum, Jean,” she says. “So after that, our diet was extremely healthy. I was always skinny and into sports too.”

But when Emma was 23, her then boyfriend’s dad, who was a GP, tested her cholesterol levels and discovered it was high.

“So I went to my own doctor and told him, but he told me I had no need to worry, that I shouldn’t be concerned until I was in my 50s,” she remembers. “And as I knew I led a healthy lifestyle, I didn’t.”

But then in 2013, her mother Jean passed away out of the blue.

“My husband Gavin and I were on holiday in Canada when I got the call,” Emma remembers. “She’d had a heart attack.”

Suddenly, high cholesterol was back in the forefront of her mind again.

“I had no idea if Mum had it too, but she was only 66 when she died, so it was possible,” Emma says.

So she went for the genetic testing and it turned out she had familial hypercholesterolemia – inherited high cholesterol.

“My levels were three times the maximum they should be,” she says. She started taking statins straight away.

“The fact I was thin and healthy didn’t matter. Only statins could try and control the high cholesterol.” She started having regular ECGs and scans. “But essentially I’m a ticking timebomb,” Emma says. “I’m far more likely to have a heart attack or stroke than anyone else. Whenever I have any pains, it so scary.”

Emma’s dad passed away in 2016 from a pulmonary embolism, aged 89.

“I miss my parents dreadfully,” she says. “Having children would be something I’d consider, but my inherited cholesterol is one of the reasons Gavin and I haven’t had them.”

But, Emma says she’s determined to live life to the full too. “I can’t let this overshadow me,” she smiles. “I’m an ambassador for Heart UK, and the work they do is vital. We’d like see a simple test done on babies.

“If they have very high cholesterol then it would suggest they have the inherited gene, but it could be managed from a younger age,” she says.

“I’m proof it doesn’t mean the end of a normal life – it just means adjusting it.”